The results, noted the report’s authors, offer further evidence of how
hackers, cybercriminals and malware developers are shifting away from a
traditional focus on enterprise infrastructure attacks. Instead they are
identifying and exploiting vulnerable application layer assets.
Consequently, FireHost is advising executives, IT professionals and
security officials to carefully assess the risks to which web
application assets are being increasingly exposed, and allocate
resources accordingly.

Well Documented Benefits of Cloud Architectures Also Create New
Targets For Hackers

“The adoption of cloud computing, mobile applications and virtualized
enterprise architectures have led to an expansion of applications that
are connected to Internet resources,” explained FireHost founder and CEO
Chris Drake.

Web-based applications are being used aggressively by public, private
and non-profit enterprises of all sizes to support the entire spectrum
of intra- and inter-organizational activities - including customer
relationship management, supply chain management and human capital
management. These IT strategies are broadly seen as flexible and
cost-effective ways to rapidly deliver services that directly support
critical business operations.

“What our latest Superfecta report clearly indicates is that this shift
has not gone unnoticed by the hacker community and a whole range of bad
actors who are always seeking new attack vectors,” Drake continued. “The
immense volume of attempted incursions documented in this latest set of
statistics show that web applications are exposed to clear-and-present
danger. It is imperative that business leaders react and respond to
these threats by bringing a new focus and attention to securing web
application resources.”

Integrated Attacks on Web Applications Becoming More Prevalent and
Automated

Q3 presented a 77 percent increase in the number of filtered attacks
over Q2 2013.

Between Q2 and Q3 2013, FireHost has detected an increase in attempted
SQL Injection and Cross-Site Scripting attacks on the client servers it
defends. The rise in SQL Injection in particular is a cause for concern
as, typically, this attack method has been highly targeted; directed
towards a few select high-net targets, being the preserve of only the
most skilled hackers. The rise in this attack traffic suggests that
technique is becoming commoditized and therefore poses a greater risk to
any businesses with hosted resources.

The rise in hackers using SQL Injections attacks is cause for particular
concern. According to Jeremiah Grossman, founder and CTO of WhiteHat
Security, the hacker community is becoming particularly creative in
combining and integrating CRSF, XSS and Directory Traversal attacks to
inject code that is designed to penetrate databases that underpin many
mission-critical, web-based applications.

“Also troubling is the trend we are seeing to automate these integrated
SQL Injection attacks. This particular category of attack has been
picking up steam for a while,” said Grossman. “But SQL Injection has
traditionally required a significant amount of skill and talent from a
programing perspective. This talent-based barrier to entry has helped to
keep this form of attack in check. The emergence of automated tools will
make this type of attack much more accessible to a broader segment of
cybercriminals. This is prompting us to advise our clients to anticipate
– and prepare for – a deluge of integrated attacks targeting web-based
SQL resources.”

The trends documented in the latest Superfecta report from
FireHost should serve as a call-to-action for business leaders,
technology executives and security professionals to look at how IT
budgets are allocated across organizations.

“Traditionally, we see the lion’s share of technology budget being spent
on creating or obtaining applications. After that, infrastructure and
hosting solutions receive the most financial attention. Investments in
security and preventative measures come in last in most cases,” said
Drake. “We create this report and work within the IT community to
provide education and prove the case that attention needs to be paid to
the application-layer threats, particularly for organizations that house
regulated data such as credit cards, personally identifiable
information, and healthcare records – where the fines for a breach of
such information is quite costly.”

As organizations review their budgets and strategic plans for 2014,
understanding the risks to which web applications are exposed will be
important in order to make effective and responsible security funding
decisions.

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

“Today, in many organizations, as much as $1 out of every $10 invested
in enterprise infrastructure technology is allocated to protect network
resources. Only $1 out of $100 is invested in web application security.
This unbalanced approach does not reflect the newly emerging threat
landscape,” said Drake.

Web Application Skillsets are Evolving Rapidly in Response to Threats

The good news, according to Drake, is that the security community is
getting much better at identifying and mitigating the growing number of
threats that target web applications.

“FireHost is working very closely with other leaders and innovative
practitioners in the application security community to track, document
and block attacks as soon as we encounter them,” he said. “It is one of
the major reasons for producing the quarterly Superfecta report. By
communicating all known instances of attacks to web applications, we are
all able to better understand and respond to threats. This collaborative
approach has helped us develop one of the most effective and Intelligent
Security Models TM available in the cloud today.”

Cross-site Scripting (XSS) – Cross-site scripting involves the
insertion of malicious code into webpages in order to manipulate
website visitors. It is used by attackers for a range of reasons, from
simply interfering with websites to launching phishing attacks against
web users.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) – CSRF is an attack that
forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in
which he/she is currently authenticated.

SQL Injection – SQL Injection involves the entering of
malicious commands into URLs and text fields on websites that happen
to be vulnerable, usually in an attempt to steal the contents of
databases storing valuable data such as credit card details or
usernames and passwords. The attack vector has been associated with
many high profile data breaches.

FireHost offers the most secure, managed, cloud IaaS available,
protecting sensitive data and brand reputations of some of the largest
companies in the world. With infrastructure built for security,
compliance, performance and agility, responsible businesses choose
FireHost to reduce risk and improve the collection, storage and
transmission of their most confidential, regulated data. FireHost’s
sophisticated business continuity solutions allow customers to make
proactive choices about distributing application traffic between more
than 20 points of presence dispersed across five continents, all while
meeting international data protection requirements.

Headquartered in Dallas, FireHost is the chosen secure cloud service
provider for brands that won't compromise on the security of their
payment card, healthcare and other highly sensitive data. http://www.firehost.com.

For IoT to grow as quickly as analyst firms’ project, a lot is going to fall on developers to quickly bring applications to market. But the lack of a standard development platform threatens to slow growth and make application development more time consuming and costly, much like we’ve seen in the mobile space.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Weiner, Product Manager of the Omega DevCloud with KORE Telematics Inc., discussed the evolving requirements for developers as IoT matures and conducted a live demonstration of how quickly application development can happen when the need to comply wit...

SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
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The findings suggest traditional businesses are quickly evolving into "composable enterprises" built out of hundreds of connected software services, applications and devices. Most are embracing the Internet of Things (IoT) and microservices technologies like Docker. A majority are integrating wearables, like smart watches, and more than half plan to generate revenue with APIs within the next year.

Growth hacking is common for startups to make unheard-of progress in building their business. Career Hacks can help Geek Girls and those who support them (yes, that's you too, Dad!) to excel in this typically male-dominated world.
Get ready to learn the facts:
Is there a bias against women in the tech / developer communities?
Why are women 50% of the workforce, but hold only 24% of the STEM or IT positions?
Some beginnings of what to do about it!
In her Opening Keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, Sandy Carter, IBM General Manager Cloud Ecosystem and Developers, and a Social Business Evangelist, d...

In his keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, Rodney Rogers, CEO of Virtustream, discussed the evolution of the company from inception to its recent acquisition by EMC – including personal insights, lessons learned (and some WTF moments) along the way. Learn how Virtustream’s unique approach of combining the economics and elasticity of the consumer cloud model with proper performance, application automation and security into a platform became a breakout success with enterprise customers and a natural fit for the EMC Federation.

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In this Power Panel at 16th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed the state of cloud computing today, and what enterprise IT professionals need to know about how the latest topics and trends affect their organization.

It is one thing to build single industrial IoT applications, but what will it take to build the Smart Cities and truly society-changing applications of the future? The technology won’t be the problem, it will be the number of parties that need to work together and be aligned in their motivation to succeed.
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In her keynote at @ThingsExpo, Manjula Talreja, VP of Cisco Consulting Services, discussed IoE and the enormous opportunities it provides to public and private firms alike. She will share what businesses must do to thrive in the IoE economy, citing examples from several industry sectors.

There will be 150 billion connected devices by 2020. New digital businesses have already disrupted value chains across every industry. APIs are at the center of the digital business. You need to understand what assets you have that can be exposed digitally, what their digital value chain is, and how to create an effective business model around that value chain to compete in this economy. No enterprise can be complacent and not engage in the digital economy. Learn how to be the disruptor and not the disruptee.

Akana has released Envision, an enhanced API analytics platform that helps enterprises mine critical insights across their digital eco-systems, understand their customers and partners and offer value-added personalized services.
“In today’s digital economy, data-driven insights are proving to be a key differentiator for businesses. Understanding the data that is being tunneled through their APIs and how it can be used to optimize their business and operations is of paramount importance,” said Alistair Farquharson, CTO of Akana.

Business as usual for IT is evolving into a "Make or Buy" decision on a service-by-service conversation with input from the LOBs. How does your organization move forward with cloud? In his general session at 16th Cloud Expo, Paul Maravei, Regional Sales Manager, Hybrid Cloud and Managed Services at Cisco, discusses how Cisco and its partners offer a market-leading portfolio and ecosystem of cloud infrastructure and application services that allow you to uniquely and securely combine cloud business applications and services across multiple cloud delivery models.

The enterprise market will drive IoT device adoption over the next five years.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, John Greenough, an analyst at BI Intelligence, division of Business Insider, analyzed how companies will adopt IoT products and the associated cost of adopting those products.
John Greenough is the lead analyst covering the Internet of Things for BI Intelligence- Business Insider’s paid research service. Numerous IoT companies have cited his analysis of the IoT. Prior to joining BI Intelligence, he worked analyzing bank technology for Corporate Insight and The Clearing House Payment...

"Optimal Design is a technology integration and product development firm that specializes in connecting devices to the cloud," stated Joe Wascow, Co-Founder & CMO of Optimal Design, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

SYS-CON Events announced today that CommVault has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. A singular vision – a belief in a better way to address current and future data management needs – guides CommVault in the development of Singular Information Management® solutions for high-performance data protection, universal availability and simplified management of data on complex storage networks. CommVault's exclusive single-platform architecture gives companies unp...

Electric Cloud and Arynga have announced a product integration partnership that will bring Continuous Delivery solutions to the automotive Internet-of-Things (IoT) market. The joint solution will help automotive manufacturers, OEMs and system integrators adopt DevOps automation and Continuous Delivery practices that reduce software build and release cycle times within the complex and specific parameters of embedded and IoT software systems.

"ciqada is a combined platform of hardware modules and server products that lets people take their existing devices or new devices and lets them be accessible over the Internet for their users," noted Geoff Engelstein of ciqada, a division of Mars International, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

Internet of Things is moving from being a hype to a reality. Experts estimate that internet connected cars will grow to 152 million, while over 100 million internet connected wireless light bulbs and lamps will be operational by 2020. These and many other intriguing statistics highlight the importance of Internet powered devices and how market penetration is going to multiply many times over in the next few years.

The majority of an organization’s revenues are dependent on suppliers, distributors and other third parties. But as Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York State’s Superintendent of Financial Services, points out: “Unfortunately, those third-party firms can provide a back-door entrance to hackers who are seeking to steal sensitive bank customer data.”
By now most everyone is well aware of the major data breaches afflicting Target and Home Depot – both triggered through a third party – that affected more than 100 million consumers. But the problem persists. A recent report from the New York State Departm...

Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers.
The next BriefingsDirect big data innovation discussion highlights how Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers. They're looking for ways to improve their businesses effectively and productively, and to share the analysis quickly and broadly.

Conservation International (CI) in Arlington, Virginia uses new technology to pursue more data about what's going on in tropical forests and other ecosystems around the world.
As a non-profit, they have a goal of a sustainable planet, but we're going to learn how they've learned to measure what was once unmeasurable -- and then to share that data to promote change and improvement.

Business and IT leaders today need better application delivery capabilities to support critical new innovation. But how often do you hear objections to improving application delivery like, "I can harden it against attack, but not on this timeline"; "I can make it better, but it will cost more"; "I can deliver faster, but not with these specs"; or "I can stay strong on cost control, but quality will suffer"? In the new application economy, these tradeoffs are no longer acceptable. Customers will abandon your brand forever for a slow response or a privacy breach; competitors will steal critical ...

Learn how the IoT Cloud will power the world of tomorrow and why managing IoT through the cloud is as important as cloud computing itself. Learn how the devices of tomorrow will work on business models that reflect a new business strategy and a way to consume services.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ian Khan, Manager, Innovation & Marketing at Solgenia, will discuss how powered by the cloud and made possible by high tech manufacturing, sensors and devices with one way and even two way ability of control will devise a new IoT Cloud enabled world.

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As a recent graduate, and now professor in the University of Connecticut's Business Analytics and Project Management masters program, I have a lot of conversations surrounding the topic of "Big Data" and questions such as, "What does that term actually mean?"
Big Data is a fairly new topic and what seems to be an elusive term for many. Conversations are important to help bring clarity to Big Data, as well as generate ideas about how we can shape, not only what it is, but also the future of where it's going.

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We Need a Holistic Network Infrastructure: Why Controllers Are Not Cutting It
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Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.